EL PASO COUNTY, CO – Former El Paso County Sheriff Terry Maketa returns to court today, seeking to get his indictment thrown out.
The Gazette reports, Maketa will appear alongside two former deputies also charged in a variety of alleged abuses of power.
Maketa and former Undersheriff Paula Presley each face nine counts, including extortion, witness tampering and false imprisonment. Former commander Juan San Agustin is charged with two felonies.
A grand jury alleges the three worked together to coerce a domestic violence victim into recanting her story to protect a deputy she claimed had punched her, leading to her arrest and wrongful incarceration.
Maketa is also believed to have threatened to end a $5 million contract with the county’s jail health-care provider unless the company terminated an employee who had refused to run Presley’s aborted sheriff campaign in 2013.
